Gavin Newsom changed climate SF at City Hall

On Gavin Newsom's Tenure as Mayor

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, December 26, 2010

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

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Hilary and Geoff Callan will be honored on Nov. 4 at the 35th anniversary of the Northern Calif. Cancer Center gala. They founded their PlumpJack Golf Tourney about 10 years ago in honor of Hilary's mom, Tessa Newsom, who died of breast cancer. Hilary, Geoff, and Hilary's brother, Mayor Gavin Newsom talk about how breast cancer has changed their lives at City Hall on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. less

Hilary and Geoff Callan will be honored on Nov. 4 at the 35th anniversary of the Northern Calif. Cancer Center gala. They founded their PlumpJack Golf Tourney about 10 years ago in honor of Hilary's mom, Tessa ... more

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

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Mayor Gavin Newsom, seen during a recent interview at San Francisco City Hall, has decided to pull out of the California governor's race.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, seen during a recent interview at San Francisco City Hall, has decided to pull out of the California governor's race.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

Gavin Newsom changed climate SF at City Hall

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Gavin Newsom's strength and weakness as mayor of San Francisco has been his willingness, as he put it, to take the risk of making "glorious mistakes" or proposing ideas that critics would find "fun to mock." This is the mayor who banned city purchases of bottled water, signed the nation's first mandatory composting law and talked of harnessing the energy of ocean waves.

Newsom's most daring move of all - allowing same-sex marriages in February 2004, in open defiance of state law - only seemed to encourage further dashes of audacity by a politician with a penchant for policy analyses backed by PowerPoints, statistics and three-ring binders. His most trusted allies and mentors advised him, publicly and privately, of the perils of such an act of civil disobedience. Some saw it as a career wrecker. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at the time bluntly called it "too far, too fast, too soon."

"I kind of felt born again in politics, because we survived it," Newsom said of the same-sex marriages, which were later invalidated by the courts, but clearly helped force the national debate on an issue of basic equality that is steadily gaining public acceptance.

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But it would be a mistake to define Newsom by his radical moments of flourish.

In reviewing the Newsom record as mayor, what is striking is the extent to which he addressed the issues that were the core of his ambitious platform when he ran in 2003. His achievements were often less than definitive - even he would not claim to have ended homelessness or cured City Hall's hostility toward business - but San Franciscans pretty much received what they were promised in 2003. Newsom is only too willing to deluge a listener with eye-glazing detail about his work on reducing sole-source contracts and creating after-school programs and college savings accounts for public schoolkids.

To his credit, Newsom took on issues that were important and seemingly intractable. More new housing has been approved on his watch than in any period since the post-1906 reconstruction. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been secured for cleanup, and redevelopment plans are rolling forward, at the old Hunters Point shipyard in the city's long-neglected southeast corner.

Biotech companies are establishing a hub of jobs and innovation here. The city's bureaucracy is being streamlined: The number of city workers is at its lowest level since 1998, and four departments were eliminated in Newsom's tenure.

He worked with labor unions to make modest reductions in the city's escalating liabilities for pensions and retiree health costs. He brought in a police chief from Arizona, George Gascón, with the mettle and energy to take on a change-resistant department.

In many ways, the atmosphere at City Hall has changed for the better under Newsom. The perennial wars - neighborhoods vs. downtown, landlords vs. tenants, homeless advocates vs. merchants and residents - have subsided, due in part to the mayor's ability to seek and find common ground. Newsom has, by all accounts, ended the rampant cronyism that pervaded the administration of his predecessor Willie Brown.

Even after 13 years in elective office, Newsom prefers to think of himself as an outsider in the political world. His distanced aura can be a blessing and a curse. His relations with the Board of Supervisors have gone through extended periods of pique. His lack of relationship with 49ers owner John York no doubt contributed to the abruptness of the team's November 2006 announcement that it was giving up on San Francisco and would build its new football stadium in Santa Clara.

Newsom worked the press, but also went through awkward phases in which he avoided journalists. One came in early 2007, when an affair with his appointments secretary and admitted battle with a drinking problem cast his political future into serious doubt. Another came in late 2009, when his failed gubernatorial bid seemed to plunge Newsom into a fitful funk.

The overall ledger on Newsom's term is decidedly positive. When he was deeply engaged, as he usually was, he generated the weather patterns of San Francisco politics with the force of his personality and quality of his staff. His role as a stopper to bad ideas brewed in the Board of Supervisors should not be undervalued. His 25 vetoes effectively blocked the worst impulses of the left-tilting board: Its attempts to over-regulate landlords, micromanage the Police Department, tax everything in sight and expand the concept of Sanctuary City to shield illegal immigrants accused of felonies.

Gavin Newsom somehow found the right balance in a city that wants to be on the cutting edge of ideas while preserving an old-fashioned appreciation for a government that is responsive and efficient. He did not solve all of the city's major problems, but he did not walk away from any of them, and he did not create any new ones for his successor. His will be a tough act to follow.

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